


No Skill Wasted

by fancywaffles



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Felix Hugo Fraldarius and Leonie Pinelli's Non-Blue Lions Paired Ending, Gen, Leonie Week 2020, Mercenaries, Post canon, Post-Golden Deer Route (Fire Emblem: Three Houses)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:42:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25955416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fancywaffles/pseuds/fancywaffles
Summary: Leonie takes a job that requires a bit of creative maneuvering so she and Felix have to pretend to be performers.(or, i'm fixing the clown ending)
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius & Leonie Pinelli
Comments: 20
Kudos: 51
Collections: Leonie Week 2020





	No Skill Wasted

**Author's Note:**

> The only thing I have ever truly gotten heated about in Fire Emblem fandom is the Leonie and Felix non-AM ending.
> 
> Also inspired by the fact that one of Leonie's advice boxes is asking what makes a great mercenary and her preferred answer is: _The will to fight for those who can't protect themselves._
> 
> For Leonie Week 2020 and the prompt Mercenary.

Leonie stared up at the bar sign, weighing the benefits of going in. She needed a drink, badly, but they were running low on funds and it was getting hard to find work in this area. That was… she supposed a good thing, but if they were going to ship out from Dagda to somewhere else to find more mercenary jobs, then they needed more gold to get them there.

“Excuse me, miss?”

It took Leonie more than a moment to realize the person who spoke was speaking to her. She’d never been called ‘miss’ in her life. She turned towards them. “Can I help you with something?”

“I heard you and your people are for hire?” The person asking was small in stature. They were clutching a small coin purse to their chest and the desperation in their eyes seemed to indicate there wasn’t much in it.

Still, she wouldn’t turn away someone who needed help. “Yep,” Leonie said. “Are you looking to hire someone?”

The person looked away from her and nodded. “I don’t have much, but, um…”

Leonie didn’t crouch to their level, she knew Lysithea hated that, but she did lean in a little and put a reassuring hand on their shoulder, lowering her voice a little. “What’s wrong?”

On closer inspection, Leonie could tell the person was very young. They looked even younger up close, as if the weariness and poverty had made them age when seen from a distance. She knew she was taking this job and not having that drink.

The kid was named Zacchaeus (who had immediately agreed when Leonie asked if she could call him Zac) and he was the son of a tailor in town who had died during one of Dagda’s previous skirmishes with Brigidian pirates. Now he wandered town doing odd jobs and not really having a place to lay his head (he hadn’t admitted the second part, but Leonie could tell). Zac’s twin Tam was apparently as talented as their father and had been taken to the estate of a rich noble in a neighboring city as ‘an indentured servant.’

And apparently their local constable refused to assist since the obvious kidnapping didn’t seem to have crueler implications.

Leonie didn’t want to take any of Zac’s money, but she also knew what it felt like when you owed a debt so she told him she’d take a couple of copper dragons to secure her services and they could work out the details later. Then she used what she’d planned on buying a drink with to have the innkeeper insist Zac stay there for the next couple of nights.

“You know we need money,” Felix said, once she filled him in. He was busy cutting an apple with a dagger and it said a lot about the state of their finances that he was eating it slice by slice.

“So you want to refuse the kid?” Leonie asked.

Felix scoffed. “Of course not.”

“If this Lord Maksim is as big of a scourge as he sounds, maybe there’s a few things that could go missing to cover our services,” Leonie suggested. She _hated_ even thinking about doing that normally and avoided looting at all costs, but Felix was right and also this guy sounded like a total asshole.

Scoping out the estate proved difficult. There were some strategic exit routes, but actually getting into it seemed to be a problem. A straightforward engagement would be too much for them, since half the crew had stayed behind in Fódlan with Shamir. It took most of the day for Leonie to come up with a plan and when she did, Felix did not like it. Which considering it sounded like something Claude might come up with, she couldn’t entirely blame him. Except Claude’s plans worked.

“You cannot be serious,” Felix said, his brow lowering towards his nose.

“No one will notice us if do it this way and the rest of the crew can be on standby for retrieval.” Leonie shrugged. “We could try getting in as gentry visiting, if you want to brush off the old Duke attitude?”

He scowled like she expected. “We’d need money for clothes.”

Leonie smiled. “Right. And without people recognizing you as a Fraldarius, I’m not sure you could pull off the whole noble thing now.” Or ever.

Felix seemed to take that as a compliment and crossed his arms over his chest. “Can’t we sneak in some other way?”

“Not with our funds and timeline,” Leonie said. She punched his arm, commiseratingly. “Come on, Felix. You won the Heron cup and you used to slice all those fruits for Flayn. What’s the difference?”

“I didn’t like doing _either_ of those things,” Felix said.

Debatable, but Leonie didn’t want to argue. “You were good at them is the point.”

Felix dropped his arms to his sides and gave the world’s most frustrated sigh. “Fine. What are _you_ planning on doing?”

“Juggling,” Leonie said.

“Why the fuck do you know how to juggle?” Felix asked.

Leonie picked up one of her own daggers and threw it into the air, catching it easily in her other hand. “Helps with hand-eye coordination. Plus it entertained the kids in Sauin when their parents were hunting.”

Felix’s mouth twisted and he gave a small grunt of acknowledgement. She could tell by the way he’d watched her throw the knife that juggling lessons were in their future. Leonie resisted grinning.

* * *

Lord Maksim’s estate was even gaudier up close. He was throwing a lavish gathering for something Leonie was sure someone told her but her brain immediately decided it was useless information and so she couldn’t remember. Either way he hired more than one performer to entertain his guests and it wasn’t too difficult to get in on the event. The town didn’t have a lot of performers and a few of them had been _encouraged_ to skip this one.

One of the guards stopped them on the way in through the servant’s entrance. “What’s your business?”

“Leopold and Fiona, sir,” Leonie said, ignoring Felix’s look. “We’re here to perform for Lord Maksim’s honored guests.”

The guard frowned and looked them both over, including the chest they were carrying. “What’s in there.”

“Entertaining supplies!” Leonie said. Then nudged Felix who sort of smiled.

“Like what? I think I should open it,” the guard said.

“Of course, sir,” Leonie said, because obviously they’d expected this. She opened the chest and he looked through the different fruits, balls, and swords and then frowned at the swords. “Leopold is a sword dancer,” Leonie explained. “It requires swords.”

“We can’t let weapons in here.”

“They’re blunt,” Felix said, stiffly.

“Don’t tell the crowd,” Leonie said with a wink. She generally didn’t throw herself into these kinds of Claude-like antics, but when it worked, it worked. Besides it was making Felix look like he’d sucked on a lemon rind.

The guard double-checked the list and the bluntness of the swords and then waved them in. Once they were inside Leonie looked at Felix. “How did you _ever_ make it as a noble? You have the charm of a potato.”

“I didn’t,” Felix said. “That’s why I’m here.”

Leonie left it at that. She didn’t want to poke the bear and have Felix moody during a job.

The banquet was a lavish affair that pissed Leonie off with the wasteful food supplies and excess extravagance that could’ve been used in town among the poorer of the denizens. “Saints, this place is haughty,” Leonie muttered.

“What did you expect from a man who kidnaps children to make his clothes,” Felix said back, while he shined up his swords.

There were a couple of fire dancers on before them, Felix seemed to enjoy that at least. It was pretty impressive. Leonie went before Felix, to warm them up and prove the reason she was in the estate was valid. She called for a few volunteers and handed them some balls and started juggling with two, before asking them to throw her some more until she was up to four. Then Leonie brought in the fruit, started juggling it and said, “I don’t want to waste any food.”

That was Felix’s cue and he sliced one of the fruits out of the air, which considering the swords were pretty blunt was impressive. A small gasp from the crowd and they continued until Felix had sliced up enough for a fruit salad.

Leonie snuck off after that. Letting the crowd pay attention to some of the moves that had won Felix the Heron Cup and helped them win the war.

She made her way upstairs as quietly as possible, passing room after room, until she happened upon a pair of doors that were locked from the outside. She knocked on one of them and when she didn’t hear a response, waited for an appropriate moment of distraction in the crowd (muttered gasps seemed to do it) and then broke the lock, pushing her way in.

Tam looked like Zac, except better fed and much more tired. Leonie did kneel down this time to their level, mostly to show she wasn’t a threat after breaking the door. “Hey, I’m Leonie. Zac sent me. He said to tell you,” she repeated the Dagdan phrase.

Tam’s fear dissipated and they laughed.

“He made me say something stupid, didn’t he?” Leonie asked.

Tam nodded, still giggling. “You said, ‘I fart for miles, but I’m trustworthy.’”

“And I gave him a discount,” Leonie huffed. She smiled at Tam and held out her hand. “You wanna get out of here?”

Tam nodded, this time much more enthusiastically.

“Okay,” said Leonie. “But you gotta be real quiet no matter what.”

They made their way downstairs twice as careful as Leonie had made her way up. When they met up with Felix at the arranged spot, his hair was stuck to his face, like he’d run a mile or done a hard training session. He looked at Tam and then dropped the chest in front of them.

Leonie opened it and explained the plan to Tam who looked between them nervously but then crawled in. Leonie covered them with a blanket and a few of the blunter swords, with some of the balls, and then closed the chest.

“What’d you do with the the rest of it?” Leonie asked.

“Stashed it in the Lord’s room,” Felix said.

“What? That’s going to get us caught.”

Felix didn’t look impressed with her. “It’s not. He’s not going back there for hours.” He gestured behind him where the Lord was drinking from a golden fluted glass with a couple of women on his lap. Ugh.

“Good, let’s get out of here.”

They were stopped by the guard on the way out, but instead of checking the chest, he wanted to compliment their skills and took at least five minutes raving about Felix’s swordsdance. Felix was red by the end of it, which helped them get out a little faster as he pushed forward holding the chest and Leonie stage whispered, “He’s shy.”

The guard nodded in understanding and they made their way into the night.

* * *

“Tam!” Zac practically shrieked, nearly matching his sibling’s crying scream as they threw their arms around each other.

Leonie couldn’t help but smile and when she glanced at Felix, he was too. A small one, but still. She nudged him with her arm.

“We did good,” Felix said, sounding a bit more at ease than he had earlier in the day. Definitely avoided his morose moods.

“We did,” Leonie agreed. Shamir always acted like being a mercenary was only about the money, but Leonie knew that it was more than that. Sometimes having a freelance fighter was the only way for people like this to actually get help. The well-paid guards at the Maksim Estate weren’t going to be checking for this kind of thing.

She turned away from the sibling reunion and looked at Felix. “Did you manage to get anything out?”

He slipped a few jeweled bracelets off his arm and handed them to her. She hadn’t even noticed he wasn’t wearing them when they came in. She raised an eyebrow and he shrugged, but refused to elaborate.

Zac and Tam were holding hands as they approached, both red faced and sniffling. “Thank you so much!” Tam said. “I thought I’d be stuck there forever.”

Zac looked down at his feet and with his free hand stuck it into his pocket and held out the small purse of what Leonie guessed weren’t too many coins. “Here. For your services.”

Leonie took it, ignoring Felix’s annoyed noise, and then handed him the bracelets. “Why don’t you two go see if the next couple of towns over have any tailor’s apprenticeships. If not, there’s a village up the coast that had plenty of other kids your age.”

Tam shook their head. “We can’t take that. You saved me.”

“You should be paid for your work,” Zac said. It sounded like he was repeating it from somewhere. Leonie guessed his late father.

“I was,” Leonie said, holding up the bag. She gestured to the bracelets. “Those are for Tam’s work. Unless you got paid and I’m misinformed?”

Tam shook their head, looked at Zac and then back at Leonie and Felix again. “Thank you,” they said, and then both kids came at Leonie and Felix so fast, she almost lost her balance. She laughed against the violent hug and patted them on the back.

Felix and Leonie walked back to where they’d made camp outside the town. They were both in better spirts than they had been in days. Felix was smirking when he asked her, “So how much did we make?”

Leonie opened the bag. “A silver dragon and three coppers, plus a button.”

“That should be enough to buy half a dinner,” Felix said.

Leonie snorted and eyed him sideways. “Hey, look on the bright side, Felix. If the merc thing dries up, now we know we have a back up plan!” At his confused face, she juggled the bag. “Everyone enjoys a performance.”

Felix scowled at her, good humor gone. “Fuck off, Leonie,” he grumbled and marched on ahead of her.

Leonie laughed to herself and put the small bag away. The button might come in handy if they lost any on their gear. Not worth it to waste anything after all.

**Author's Note:**

> One of the merc crew who should know better wolf whistles at Felix’s dancer getup. Leonie doesn't break up the fight, figuring it's good for Felix to get his energy out since they didn't engage in combat for the job.


End file.
